EL SALVADOR TRIP JANUARY 2013

In January I was lucky enough to travel to Central America to visit some of the farms we currently deal with, find some new ones and select the coffees we will be roasting this summer. The trip took in Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador and all the farms were slap bang in the middle of harvest when I was there.

Fast forward to now and the first container from El Salvador has arrived at Felixstowe. As the coffees arrive I will be posting a little report of my trip to each country here on the blog so you can see a little of the people and the hard work that goes into producing these exceptional coffees. We entered El Salvador by road from Guatemala, the two countries are divided by the Rio Paz river and after you cross the bridge there are lot of windows, questions and red tape to navigate before you are allowed onto the other side, a classic example of socialist Salvador’s pointless bureaucracy according to my Guatemalan companions.

Once over the border we immediately started climbing as we headed toward the highlands and Santa Ana, El Salvador’s second city and the hub of the coffee region. Our first stop was the mill owned by the Pacas family.